


Journey

by endemictoearth



Category: My Mad Fat Diary
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-07
Updated: 2014-05-07
Packaged: 2018-04-08 10:04:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4300611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endemictoearth/pseuds/endemictoearth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during Series 2 Episode 5, this is an alternate ending where Rae and Finn's dad go up to see Finn instead of Rae going to Liam's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Journey

**Author's Note:**

> So, here’s this. I don’t know exactly where it came from. It feels a little different to me, from the other things I’ve written. Trigger warning for allusions to self harm.

Rae walked up to Finn’s house, hoping she wasn’t too late. Finn’s dad was at his car, closing the door. “Mr. Nelson? Is Finn at home?”

“He’s gone to Leeds, Rae. He left this mornin’.”

“So he’s gone?” She hadn’t considered that he would actually go. She always thought he would say goodbye and she’d tell him what she should have said the other night.

“He’s goin’ ta come back to visit in a few weeks, maybe. When he’s settled.” He brushed past her brusquely. Rae thanked him as he passed, and turned to leave.

The first thought in her mind was she should go to Liam’s house. Stop pretending to try to get better and just settle at the bottom of the pile once and for all; that’s where she belonged. Down there with the mad and the loud and the fucked up people of the world. Least they could do was stick together so no one else got infected by them; it would be a public service, really. But there had been something in Mr. Nelson’s eyes, a sort of quiet desperation, that made her stop. He hadn’t wanted his son to go, not yet. Finn had left home, and it felt like her fault. It felt like Tix. She made such a mess of other people’s lives, never mind the sorry state of her own. That’s why she broke up with Finn in the first place, so he wouldn’t be one of those left bruised in her wake, like the survivor of a natural disaster. Hurricane Rae.

And that’s when it hit her. He had. He’d survived his mum leaving. And now, she … light dawned in her mind. It was like she’d cracked the code to a combination lock, sliding the numbers into place, and when it was open, she could see the situation clearly for the first time. Finn was depressed. What were his words? “I’m not just down about Olivia … I don’t enjoy college, I never have. I’m only there ‘cause everyone else is … I’m miserable in general.” 

You can’t make someone love you, but you also can’t make them stop loving you. At least not all at once; not overnight. And Finn had loved her. He might still. 

So, Rae turned back. Mr. Nelson was halfway in the door when she called out. “I’m sorry! Can you … I know I messed up. He shouldn’t have gone. It was all my—Can you … ?” She couldn’t even finish the question. It was too much. Too much to ask this lovely man whose son she’d driven away.

He looked at her evenly, like he’d worked everything out weeks ago. She could tell; he wouldn’t help her. But then, without her finishing her question, he answered. “Yeah. Come on, then. Call your mum and we’ll go after him.”

* * *

The drive up had been free of conversation, but John did play his Dire Straits tape for Rae. Though she knew it was just to cut the tension, a little voice in the back of her head thought, ‘I guess this is our rain check.’ 

He knew exactly which house it was, and pulled into a spot across the street, a few doors down and pointed wordlessly to the one where his brother lived. It well after midnight, and the moon was low. The sky seemed impossibly black; even the stars were dim and distant. The street lamps didn’t penetrate the shadows, and they sat there, in the dark and quiet for a few minutes. John didn’t know whether to trust this girl, but he knew how much his son loved her. So, he hoped he’d done the right thing, bringing her all this way.

Just as he was about to speak, to tell her to go up to the door and knock, the door opened and someone came out, head down. He sat on the front steps and lit a cigarette. When the flame came near his face, John and Rae could see that it was Finn. They both seemed to hold their breath for a moment, and they watched him smoke the cigarette almost down to the filter. He then held the still smoldering end in his hand, twisting it between his fingers, and just as he started to press it into the inside of his arm, Rae opened the door and screamed, “NO!” John had been too stunned to react. He’d never imagined his son doing anything like that. He watched as Rae ran over to Finn, taking the cigarette butt and flinging it into the street.

* * *

Rae held Finn’s trembling hands in both of her own. “Shhh,” she whispered, bringing him into a gentle embrace. “It’s okay. It’s okay.” Finn was sobbing silently and Rae knew that this was about more than her, more than the two of them. She knew all too well how things could build up without noticing them until they were out of hand, on top of you, pushing on you until you stopped struggling and just kept drifting down down down. She kissed the top of his head and said, “I understand. You want to feel something, anything. And you think that burning yourself will make that happen, but I know from experience that it won’t. I’ve got dozens of reminders that it doesn’t work.” Finn shuddered out another sob and Rae held him tighter, feeling Finn clutch the back of her jacket.

She let him cry himself out, forgetting that his father was in the shadows, watching their reunion. Tears filled her eyes, too, and she wiped them away before they could drop onto his hair.

Finn’s breath was ragged, but he finally stuttered the words, “Wh-what—are—y-you—doin’—here?”

“Your dad brought me. I asked, an’ he … well, I think he understood how much I owed you an apology.”

Finn looked up, confusion clouding his red, raw eyes.

“Finn, I’m so sorry. You have no idea how much.” She paused, trying to think how best to say what she came to say. “I’ve been pretty selfish,” she started. “Okay, incredibly selfish.”

She breathed deep, trying to find the strength to be as honest as possible with this wonderful boy that she’d help to break.

“I was so wrapped up in how  _I_  felt about everythin’; I didn’t see anythin’ from your side. I thought I was still fallin’, and I didn’t want to drag you down with me. But, really, I was strugglin’ back up, and I didn’t see you fallin’ until you fell right past me. This is me trying to catch you. Because I don’t want you to ever go as low as I’ve been.”

Her eyes were full of tears, but she didn’t cry, didn’t let herself break, because she was here to be strong for Finn. He was the one running away, just like she had, only he’d done the thing proper. She stared into his sad eyes, willing him to understand her, willing him to say something, but he wasn’t good with words at the best of times. So, she closed her eyes, two tears slipping down her face, and continued.

“I didn’t want to be the reason you stayed. Because if I was, and things didn’t work out, or I hurt you again … it’s so much responsibility, knowin’ that you can affect someone’s happiness. I didn’t think I was ready for it, so I pretended I didn’t understand. I let you go, so I didn’t have to deal with what was happenin’. I almost … I don’t want to say what I almost did to avoid dealin’ with things.”

Finn’s eyes welled up again, and Rae put her hands up to catch his tears. “What did you do, Rae?” he whispered.

She didn’t want to lie to him, but she didn’t want to hurt him any more than she had to. A memory came to her, that bleak morning, months ago, when she’d almost made the biggest mistake.

“I once believed that I hated myself more than I could ever love anyone. I still wonder sometimes, but when I think of you …”

Finn reached out and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. “Don’t, Rae. Please don’t hate yourself.”

Rae hugged Finn back, as tight as she could. “I’m tryin’. I don’t hate myself as much as I used to, but I have these days. These bleak bleak days. And ever since I hurt you … it’s been hard to think kindly about myself.”

Finn’s voice was all jagged angles in her ear. “So, you wanted me to stay? You don’t … you didn’t stop lovin’ me?”

She couldn’t stop herself from shaking her head. “No, no! Finn. You won’t understand, but it was because I loved you so much that I left.”

Finn recoiled like he had been burnt. Not by his cigarette, but by her words. “What?” he hissed. “How does that even make sense?”

Rae shook her head mournfully. “I know. It’s mad. I don’t think ya ever really believed I was mad, and I never wanted ya to see, but here’s the proof.”

Finn swiped the back of his balled-up fist across his face, smearing the tears that wouldn’t stop falling. “I never CARED what some hospital said about ya, Rae. What some doctor diagnosed you with. I just wanted ya to feel better, to feel okay about yourself. But of course, I fucked it up. Ya didn’t understand me and I was too scared to try an’ explain.”

“Why?”

“Your words come so easy to ya, Rae. I’m in awe of how ya can jus’ bang on about anythin’ … it’s amazin’, really. It takes me a long time to even know how I feel about somethin’, and even then, I can’t just explain it.” He shrugged helplessly. 

“Please, try. I’m not goin’ anywhere. I’m not runnin’ again.” Rae reached out and took Finn’s hand in hers, squeezing it as encouragement and sitting silent, happy to wait as long as he needed, until he was ready.

They sat there, fingers intertwined tightly, arms pressed together, heads leaning against each other, for a long moment. 

Finn sighed. When he spoke a moment later, Rae was startled. She had gotten used to the silence, and was parsing it for meanings of it’s own. 

“I know you, Rae. At least, I think I do.”

Rae nodded almost imperceptibly, like she wasn’t sure she should agree.

“An’ I got to know ya on me own, without any … what’s the word? … preconceived ideas abou’ what ya were like, or how you should be. An’ I really liked ya. Still do. I love ya, in fact.” Rae felt his shoulders rise and fall under his deep breath. “Nothin’ ya’ve shown me; nothin’ I’ve learned about ya makes me like ya any less. Really, it’s the opposite. I like when ya annoy me; I like when ya piss me off. ‘Cause no girl’s ever made me feel so many things, Rae. No girl’s ever been you, Rae.”

Her tears flowed a little faster as he kept going.

“I wanted to feel everythin’ with ya, Rae.” Rae stopped breathing for a second. The air felt still around them. After what felt like an eternity, Finn continued. “Still do.”

Rae’s head, which had been leaning on his shoulder now curled itself toward his neck and chest. Finn’s arms wrapped around her, holding her close. For a girl who could be so loud, she sometimes whispered so quietly that Finn questioned whether she had spoken at all. But he would have sworn on a stack of holy texts that she murmured, “Me too.”


End file.
